MAHENDRA H FADIA Vs. MEHSANA MUNICIPALITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, a Project Officer of Mehsana Municipality, Mehsana, filed this special civil application and prayed for the following reliefs :

(2.) The petitioner was given the appointment as Community Organiser on 1-12- 1977 in the Urban Community Development Programme sponsored by the Central Government through the State Governments. The State Government implemented this programme through municipalities. It was a plan initially for five years. Ultimately there is no dispute that this plan was taken up by the municipalities. In connection with the implementation of that scheme, the staff has to be appointed lor each separate unit. We are only concerned with the staff of Community Organisers and the Project Officer. Under the aforesaid scheme, a project has been opened in Mehsana Municipality on 7-11-1977. In all six Community Organisers and one Project Officer were appointed. The person who was holding the post of Project Officer in the Project has resigned therefrom on 13th June 1980 and the petitioner was ordered to take the charge of Project Officer. From the averments made by the petitioner in the special civil application, it is clearly borne out that he was given a fixed term appointment on the post of Project Officer, which was extended from time to time. It also comes out from the record of this special civil application mat the appointment of the petitioner on the post of Project Officer was purely on temporary and ad hoc basis and that has been extended from time to time by the Director of Municipalities. As per the scheme, the appointment on the post of Project Officer has to be made by direct recruitment. However, in due course it was provided that the Project Officer should be promoted from the Community Organisers. The respondent-Municipality invited the applications through an advertisement issued in the daily Jai Hind on 3-8-1984 for the appointment of Project Officer (U.C.D.). The petitioner felt aggrieved of this action of the respondent-Municipality as what he claimed that he should have been given the promotion on this post and challenged that action before this Court by filing Special Civil Application No. 4228/84. That Special Civil Application came to be withdrawn by petitioner unconditionally on 3-1- 1985. The order which has been passed by this Court in that petition has been reproduced by the petitioner in para No. 19 thereof. This petition has been filed by the petitioner before this Court on 15th January 1985, possibly when the interviews were to be taken. After filing of this petition the petitioner has amended this Special Civil application and prayer has been for further addition to the reliefs to the prayers (A) and (B), which are as under :

(3.) This Special Civil Application is contested by the respondent No. 1 by filing reply to the same. The case of the respondent No. 1 is that the project was made permanent and as such the appointment has to be made on the post of Project Officer as per the rules of the Municipality.